Halloween

I'd like to be able to report that I had a Master Plan from the beginning, but that would be a lie.
I'm talking about Halloween 2017 At The Darby's.
I'm about to let you in on my creative process and how my family works with me to make me crazy help me make it happen.
In this case, I had seen a friend's Facebook post last year. (Last year!) ...

I get to attend some pretty amazing events as part of my blog life, but none more anticipated (and shrouded in secrecy) as the Star Wars: The Force Awakens Press Junket.
I received the coveted invitation which was pretty much a 'save the date' with no information as to the time and place. Can you imagine? Of course, I responded ...

Do you love fall? I truly do.
Although, here in Southern California, Fall is a little schizophrenic. We have very cool and blustery days and then the sun will come out and suddenly it's just a regular beach day. It even rained one day in September. We didn't know how to act, of course. We just don't know how to "do" weather.
However, the calendar ...

I've been saying from the beginning of this month that I was too tired to "do" Halloween this year.
I insisted that they were getting too old for this. (Notice I didn't say the "I" on that one? I know. Shut up.)
Let's just shut off all the lights and sit upstairs in the dark and watch movies and ignore the ...

And now for something completely different....
I don't usually enjoy horror movies. Wait. Let me rephrase. I don't like horror movies. At all. In fact, I hate them. They're usually so... well, horrific. (But I did enjoy An American Werewolf in London back in the day, mostly because of the comedic elements, but I'll deny it if ...

Marta here: Most Cubans are familiar with Santayana Jewelers. They are a mainstay of the Cuban exile community in Miami. I'm delighted that Elena Santayana has graciously agreed to share her family's stories. Her memories of growing up Santayana are both hilarious and poignant.
(Translations to her Cubanisms are marked with a red * and are at the ...

A few months ago, my son, Jonathan (16) breathlessly runs in.
"Mom, you've got to see this!" He then proceeds to show me the following movie trailer:
Explosions! People in peril! ! MARVEL SUPERHEROES ! ! (Win.Win.WIN!)
He knows (because I've told him repeatedly, as I have all four of my kids) that I was a nerdy ...

My mom calls.
"Van a ir al tri-co-tri?" She's asking if the kids are going out and Trick or Treating.
El Tri-co-tri. You have to say it phonetically, TREE-COH-TREE. It's what Trick or Treat sounds like with a Cuban accent. The "El" is just to make it grammatically correct.
El Tri-co-tri. Noun. (Or verb?) The act of dressing up and begging for ...

(I, Kikita, wrote this post.)
If you're Cuban (or any other type of Latino) I'm sure you know about New Year's Eve Traditions.
This year I decided that, since I was now 26, I would do things MY way. First, I did all of the classic traditions on Miami time. When it was midnight in Miami (9pm here) I was listening to a Cuban song, ...

There are so many things about our Halloween celebration that I love.
I love the dressing up and the treats. I love the combination of purple, orange, black, and green (It's all very 60's mod to me, but that's not important right now).
I love the cute decorations. (These were from a particularly brilliant last minute pdf. download ...

I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween.
I love the kids in costumes and carving pumpkins and all that but I kind of hate the creepy/ghoulish stuff. We never got to do any of this when I was little. At least until we came to the U.S. That's when we began to get involved in the dress-up-and-beg-for-candy novelty that is Halloween.
But ...

(Inspired by The Simple Woman's Daybook by way of Ali Edwards.)
Outside my window...Serious sunshine. Purple and white cosmos in my garden almost as tall as me.
I am thinking...about that stack of recipes I have that I want to try. There are old-school bocaditos I want to make and a Flan Cake I have been itching to try. (I think today is that ...

Kikita here. I'm sure you are wondering why I've hijacked the blog so consistently this week . . . well, the first reason is because I've done so many cool things . . . Helloooo Andy! But the other reason is that Mami went to Vegas this weekend so she was busy getting ready for her mini-viaje. I'm sure that she will have some ...

We had no big plans for the weekend after our Halloween party on Friday. Like I said yesterday, we were feeling pretty zombie-like and didn't have energy for much.
Honestly, I like weekends where we are all just puttering around the house, reading or watching movies, or working on projects without the "tyranny of the ...

Not really sure what's up with these singing skeletons, but they are up at Disneyland as part of the Day of the Dead display outside of the Rancho del Zocalo Mexican Restaurant at Disneyland. Here in So Cal, because we have such a sizable Mexican population the Dia de los Muertos celebrations are very common.
Having grown up going to ...

Every single one of our trick-or-treating neighbors made a comment about the pumpkins jack-o-lanterns.
We were the show-stopper house. Even more so than the guys down the street that had the inflatable Frankenstein and fake cobwebs. People were even posing their costumed kids on our brick path for photos and we were loving every ...